“I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was” (Toby Keith)
Yesterday was my birthday … I’ll just let that sit for a moment.
I’m not generally a fan of my birthday. I’m not one to celebrate a “birthday month” (There’s a reason that it’s called a birth-DAY). I really only entertain the idea of a party once every ten years. However, since I can’t stop the inevitable, I do try to make it profitable. On my birthday … and I don’t think I’m alone in this … I tend to stop for a moment and reflect some on the past year. At my decade intervals I look back comprehensively on the previous ten and then, with anticipation, imagine what the next decade might bring … for better or worse. I’ll not weigh in yet on this current decade, but lets just say that I’m needing to maximize these next two years to get somewhere close to what I had imagined.
this year my reflection is centered around my experiences this past year with what I’ll term as “the tension between more and less”. In no particular order, at 58 years of age:
- I have more hair than I imagined I would and less gray in it.
- The more I walk, the less I miss out on what God is doing in my life and neighborhoods.
- The more I drive, the less chance I have to refrain from non-pastoral language.
- I’d prefer more foam from my barista and less from my bartender.
- The more protests I witness over masks, vaccines, personal rights, and all the rest, the less confident I am of us overcoming this pandemic.
- The more I slow down and be present, the less I will miss out on key moments in the lives of those I love.
- The more I talk, the less interested people are in what I have to say.
- The more I act, the less likely people are to judge me on my talking.
- The more I recognize my own issues, the less I judge the issues of others.
- The more time I spend listening to Jesus, the less time I have for church nonsense.
- The more apps I load on my iPhone, the less memory I have to operate those same apps.
- The more resistant to change that I am, the less likely I will be leading anything during my next ten years.
There it is … a years worth of wisdom considered in an early morning hour on my couch. If you’ll excuse me, I have to put my mask on again and get on with the business of living this next year.